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Makes me smile every time I watch that clip. Wow, they achieved the possible but highly improbable outcome and won the game with 0 seconds on the clock.

These days it is a Hail Mary just to send in a resume for a job posting you are qualified for, because there are 1,473 others hoping to make the catch along side you.

One of the problems with job boards and online job sites is the ease of submitting ones resume. It only takes a click, attache a resume and off it goes. It is so easy to fling that Hail Mary resume out there.

Maybe the thinking is, “I shouldn’t submit my resume, I’m not qualified for this job, but who knows, Doug Flutie scored a touchdown on a pass that shouldn’t have been caught, so what the heck”.

I can understand the urge, but don’t do it. 100% of the time you won’t get the job. It’s not the same thing.

Dan Schawbel just wrote a piece about The Demise of the Job Boards…. In it he refers to a women that has sent her resume out 1,700 times. Could she have been a fit for all of those jobs? No Way.

I suggest that a better use of time would be to research to determine which companies fit her requirements first. Once the list of companies has been defined, it becomes about references, referrals, affinity groups, the professional graph and personal contact. Work your network out to three degrees and find your best connection to the hiring manager. Ultimately, it is all about minimizing the perceived risk for the hiring manager. ( A lot more can be said on this topic in another article).

Back to the subject at hand, don’t spam your resume. Concentrate on the opportunities with the higher probability of fit and success that are based on minimizing the hiring mangers risk by building or mining connections from you to them.

Spend your time with opportunities that have your highest probability of success, rather than tossing your resume out to places that you have 0% chance of getting hired.

At the minimum, be a good fit for the job, otherwise you have zero chance.

There has been a lot of recent talk of the resume being dead, hiring 2.0 and the newest whatever …….con-ver-blog-vid-podmetrical-seo’d… way to find your next career move.

It is time to set the record straight. The resume is not dead. The tendency to proclaim something dead might garner a little more attention with a dramatic headline, but as in life, things mostly adapt rather than die off.

The “old” resume used to be a piece of paper with an objective, describing the next job you desire, and a listing of companies you worked at along with some accomplishments for each position. It is more correct to say that the resume has evolved.

In general a resume is a summary of accomplishments. Reputation is derived from others acknowledgment of those accomplishments. So a resume is not really tied to the medium on which it is delivered.

If someone tells me about one of the attendees at a party, “he created the concept for public libraries, was an accomplished author, created a more efficient wood stove, invented the bifocal lens and was the ambassador to France“, I would say he has an impressive resume, even though I didn’t read this on paper or online.

Let’s consider the source of the resume is dead idea.

It is the SM (social media) folks flogging us with the standard,”it’s a conversation” “your blog is your resume” cat-o-ninetails. I sense more than a little self interest and sensationalism in declaring the resume is dead.

What has changed is the available tools and methods to drive attention to yourself and your acomplishments.

Certainly blogs are the easiest way to promote yourself. All you need are typing skills, command of your language and ideas that establish you as a contributor in your field. The search engines will find you and people (including recruiters) will visit your blog.

A blog post can certainly prompt contact from a recruiter. But don’t be distracted by the idea that all you need to do is write some posts that will attract organic recruiter search traffic. Ultimately, you will have to have a track record of accomplishments.

I agree that ideally, as Seth Godin points out, if you are remarkable at what you do, you dont need a resume. He did not say “the resume is dead” BTW. Remarkable people have a reputation that precedes them.

But it all circles back to accomplishments which create a reputation.

Certainly the traditional resume has evolved to include blogs, videos, podcasts, social networking profiles-such as Linkedin or Facebook, twitter and friendfeed accounts etc…

Compared to the static resume document of yore, there now are alot more ways to get internet juice to promote yourself with a resume enlivened with new media, but there is nothing worse than responding to a promotion and finding there is no substance to the promotional item.

Bottom line, a resume is what you have delivered in your career, whether it be code, sales dollars, cost savings or increased market share. No amount of social media promotion will over come lack luster accomplishment.

On a more practical note, a resume is for the hiring company and should demonstrate how you can do the job they are looking to fill. So, if you are reaching out to a company, make sure your resume is tailored to their specific task at hand, if you want to stand out.

Oh, and don’t forget to link to your livelyself on your blog and LinkedIn profile.

Your resume does not get you a job. It gets you an interview. Therefore it should be written to succinctly describe your quantifiable accomplishments and create interest with the hiring manager.

When a manager receives your resume, they are going to read every line and take their time to delve into the details of your career……….. not.

Usually a manager will have a stack of resumes and quickly pass over them all. What stands out for managers is where you work or have worked, quantifiable accomplishments such as what products you have shipped or how much you have exceeded quota. What they do not look at is a summary or objective. At this point they are trying to fill their needs not yours.

As much as some people dislike the idea, buzzword compliance is necessary. Mainly to make it through the recruiters screen. But do not just throw a skill on without the experience. This will quickly kill an opportunity when a manager finds you don’t have the skills you said you did.

Beyond accomplishments, personal details can potentially create interest with a hiring manager. Certainly a blog is a good idea.